Young Erik
by Leo-Ressa
Summary: Moviebased possible explanation of how Erik learned his talents. Later chapters will be ErikxGiryMme.
1. A New Home

The movie changes the event of Eric's upbringing a lot, having him arrive in the Opera House at the time (the Opera Garnier was started in 1861 and wasn't finished until 1873) as a child instead of as an adult. An explanation is needed of how he learned and gathered his abilities and possessions. Also, the movie changes Madame Giry's character slightly, too, having her know more about him and still having her keeping his secrets a secret. So here's a possible explanation.

Disclaimer: This is fan fiction. I don't own the characters obviously.

A/N: This is going to be a long fanfic from the time when young Madame Giry rescues Erik to after Christine leaves with Raoul. I will try to update as often as I can but bear with me. The rating is for later chapters.

He awoke to find the strange girl watching him with the same expression she had worn the previous evening before helping him get free of the gypsy camp. Instinct told him to pull his burlap sack down over his face, for it had somehow moved to show her his face in his sleep.

"Don't." She reached out to protest the action. He caught himself, staring back at her from half under his mask.

He felt an emotion in himself he had never known before and sorted it around his mind, trying to determine a word to call it to no avail.

"Why didn't you laugh?" he found the words to say in a soft little voice.

She seemed to start at the sound of his voice but returned to her previous kind expression. "You seemed so lost… and that little doll."

He gazed at her, wondering if she was perchance an angel as he had heard existed. "Are you an angel?" he asked.

Her eyes went wide, and she shook her head, laughing a little. He started to wince, but stopped himself because her laughter held none of the meanness to which he had grown accustomed. Her laughter was unlike anything he had ever experienced before, and again he felt the strange emotion.

But she was answering his question, so he would try to find out what the sensation was later. "Of course not! My name is Marguerite. I'm a ballet student here."

He gazed at her again, unsure what "ballet" and "student" meant, but deciding from her tone that it meant she was not an angel. Before finding out exactly what she had meant, however, he decided to find out where he was. "Where's here?"

She looked around herself in glorious wonder. "The current home of the Opera," she whispered. "Or one of the rooms underneath the Opera, at any rate."

He had heard of the Opera at least and informed her as much.

She gazed at his face until he met her eyes, never having known someone to stare at him so long without either sneering laughter or repulsion. "Do you have a name?"

He blinked and said the name his mother had given him along with his mask. "Ugly."

She winced. "That's not a name."

An idea occurred to him. "What's a name then? Can you give me one?"

"Erik is a nice name, for example," she explained.

"Erik," he repeated. "I like that name."

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

"What's 'hungry'?"

She gaped at him in confusion. "Hungry is when you want food."

He nodded. "Yes. I'm hungry."

She got up.

"Where are you going?" he stared at her.

"To get food for you."

"Will I see you again?"

She nodded. "I'll be back within an hour."

After she left, he looked around the room at the various pieces of furniture and things he couldn't even begin to name. He knew he was sitting on a bed. He knew Marguerite had been sitting on a chair. And he knew the surface in between them was a table.

However, beyond that, he didn't know what anything here was. There was a person out of something white and powdery.

There were candles all around resting in candleholders whose arms reached together at the base. One of these candleholders had all its candles lit.

There were painted pictures of people resting up against something covered in a sheet.

Even upon holding the sheet up, he couldn't say what the object underneath was except that it was black other than white movable boxes interspaced with smaller black ones. He pressed one of the white ones and jumped back. A loud noise had come from inside it. He pressed more of these and heard different tones come out of each of them. He pulled out a chair that was under the object and pressed all of these white boxes from end to end, followed by all of the black boxes, followed by both white and black boxes all the way from end to end.

Then, he heard a noise up above and stopped unless whoever it was should hear him and return him to the circus. At this thought, he became suddenly scared and wondered if maybe Marguerite had lied about returning. The thought scared him so much that he looked for the burlap monkey with tiny metal cymbals he had made. He found it stuffed between the wall and the bed and ran to it, clutching it and sitting back down on the bed.

She was back within thirty minutes and set a slice of bread and some stew in front of him. He gazed from her to the food and back to her in shock. She misunderstood his gaze. "I apologize that it's not much, but I'll be able to get you more later."

"It's more than I've ever seen at one time before! Can I eat it?"

She nodded. "It's for you."

He set about to devour the feast.

She was gazing at him again as he ate, so as he finished, he turned to her.

"You have a nice voice," she said in explanation of her stare.

He started then realized he didn't understand what she was saying, although the tone sounded like the same kindness she had been using. "What's nice?" he asked.

"Nice is not ugly," she explained.

Vaguely, he remembered something his mother had taught him when he was old enough to begin talking. "Thank you," he whispered. He guessed he had said the right thing when a smile appeared on her face. Like her laugh, it was soft… nice.

"You have a nice laugh and a nice smile."

She chuckled at him again, returning the "thank you."

"Earlier, you said something about something called 'ballet'," he questioned her.

"Ballet," she said, getting up and showing first to sixth position with demi-plié. By the end, he had gotten up too and was imitating her.

"Who taught you?" she said, stopping.

"Taught?"

She sighed upon realizing there were a lot of words he did not know. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"I do what you do," he figured that this was the closet thing to what she wanted.

"You're graceful for someone who's never heard of ballet."

He beamed, knowing she was giving him a compliment. "Thank you." An idea occurred to him. "Can you do more so I can learn?"

She blinked at him in confusion. "Do you want me to teach you?"

He nodded, having figured that teach much mean the opposite of learn.

"Oh…" she exclaimed. "I don't really know enough to teach you, but there are rafters above the stage and if you hide there during our ballet lesson, I'm sure you could watch. And if anybody sees you, you can just say you're Old Gautier's son. He has so many nobody would ever question you."

"Should I where my face-cover?"

She peered at her feet, trying to decide. "If you want," she finally said.

He snatched at his burlap sack so fast she didn't notice for the first few second it was in his hands. When she saw it there, clasped between his fingers, she sighed. "Do you want a real mask?"

He looked at the sack in his hand and stood up. "What's a mask?"

She peered at him again. "Were you always so inquisitive?"

He nodded. "I ask as many questions as if I can get out. Isabelle – the woman with the beard – usually answers them when I do."

She thought back on where she had helped him escape from, and she sat forward, hands clasped with her curiosity peaked. "What was it like in the circus? Did you have to stay in that horrible cage the whole time?"

He shook his head. "I got out sometimes. Master Namir tried to keep me in my cage, but I always got out, and it frightened him. He fell asleep, and I'd grab his keys and go ask Isabelle questions or watch the Babette and Belle practice their show. They are beautiful to watch. When Master Namir woke up, he dragged me back." He paused.

Into the silence, she asked, "Is Master Namir the man you killed?"

He nodded.

"Why did you kill him?" she half-accused.

"He hurt me. He made the people laugh at me. He wouldn't let me keep on my mask."

She inched back. "But now you won't go to heaven!"

He tipped his head in confusion.

"Don't you know what heaven is?"

He shook his head.

"It's where all the angels live!" she exclaimed, still half in shock.

He looked around the room then at her and smiled. "Is this heaven?"

"Shh!" She pressed her hand over his mouth. "Don't speak such blasphemy!"

He blinked at her, having gotten over the shock of her touch.

"I will try not to," he said once she brought her hand away.

She nodded and smiled at this promise.

"Won't you miss them, Isabelle and the twins?" she asked after a moment.

He shook his head. "Not at all. Can I go out of here?"

She considered for a moment. "Yes. If anybody sees you, say your Old Gautier's son and there shouldn't be a problem."

He beamed. "And should I bring my face-cover?"

She looked around. "There has to be something better than your old burlap sack to cover you face with. All this stuff is from… Ah. Here it is!" She picked up a fitted face-cover. "This is a mask. You can wear it instead of the burlap if you go out."

"A mask…" he whispered as he took it, staring at it. It had a smile for a mouth and was whiter than the small boxes on the tone player. It had eye-holes cut in it and a small hole for the nose. He held it up to his face and gazed through it.

"Do you want me to tie it for you?" she asked.

He nodded, and she did.

"Now you can get it on and off." She gazed around the room again and came back with a surface through which he could she himself in the mask. "This is a mirror. Take a look."

He did and smiled. "I like it. No face." He gestured at his own face.

"Now you can explore, but I have to be getting back up for ballet lessons. Will you be all right?"

He nodded.

"I'll be back later."

He nodded again. She opened the door and began to leave.

"Wait!" he called after her, remembering something he had forgotten to ask. "What's that?" he pointed at the thing with the moving boxes.

Her gaze followed his finger. "That's a piano. Can you play anything?"

He stared.

"I apologize. I forgot you don't know certain words. You can make music with it if you'd like to."

Then she was gone before he had opened his mouth to ask her what "music" was. He hugged his burlap monkey to his chest and gazed at the mask in the mirror.


	2. Sights

What wouldn't you do in a fantastic opera ballet house?

* * *

Erik decided that since Marguerite had given him permission to explore his new home, he would take the opportunity to do this. His first exploration would be to find out what the interesting activity of ballet was, since any place that showed people how to do the beautiful show of ballet – which reminded him so much of Babette and Belle's show – had to be as interesting as what she had shown him. So he opened the door to his room and peered out.

There was no one in the hall. Though she had given him permission to explore – a thing he was still uneasy about – he still felt it would be easiest and safest for him if he remained unseen, at least until he knew his way around enough to fit in or knew who would keep him secret enough to show himself to them. With his face though, he was not certain he would ever fit in, no matter how much he learned. Still, his curiosity won out, and he set out on his first explorations of his new surroundings.

When he got to the first opening, he turned and stared. There were large boxes the same size as the ones beside the stage – steps, he remembered they were called. However, he had never seen so many of them. Above, there seemed to be another hallway. "Brilliant…" he whispered as he had overheard one of the spectators remarking about Babette and Belle. As they had told him the word meant something new and impressive, he figured it was the right word to use in this case.

Within another second, he had climbed the steps and stood inside another hallway. There were more closed doors, with rooms behind them to explore the contents of, but he would leave them for later. The men who had chased him for killing Master Namir would never find him here, not if he was certain never to show himself to people whom he did not know. He knew Marguerite would not betray him. He had known it even before she had helped him escape, when she had met his eyes and not laughed in the way the others had. But even with her assurance, he was still not sure if other people in the Opera House would tell the men who were after him where he was.

There was another set of steps so he climbed it. Then, he saw something he had only seen when he had escaped into the city on first arrival into it and had ducked into a giant stone building. When he had seen it the first time, he had immediately asked the nearest person what it was, at had waiting while he told him, those few seconds costing him his hopes of seeing more of the city when Master Namir had run around the corner and had dragged him back to the circus. He remembered the name though, and it was _stained-glass_. Although this one did not have the beautiful designs of the one in that building, he still thought it looked like the patterns on Babette and Belle's costumes and was therefore beautiful.

He walked over to the _stained-glass_ and touched it as he had not been able to do with the previous _stained-glass_. It was smooth and thin and he could see through it. He pushed it open and noted that it was daylight, probably mid-afternoon, and that the _stained-glass_ door was small and close to the ground.

He heard someone walking nearby and closed the window, ducking into a nearby space where he would not be seen and looking behind him, but the hallway was still empty: the sound had not come from behind him but from above. And, it was accompanied by a woman's voice, clearly angry with whomever she was yelling at.

"I want a higher salary, Gerard, and unless I get it, you can find yourself a new star!"

This demand – Erik did not understand "salary" and "star" but understood "want" as a demand – was quickly followed by the response of what sounded like a rich, though startled, man. "Please, my dear, we are doing our best. We need you. You need us -."

The walking started again. "You need me! I need a bigger salary!"

The man cleared his throat. "Yes, Miss Giulia. We'll see what we can do!"

The walking stopped. "And even if you cannot give me what I want, I must at least remind you that two months of my salary are due!"

"I understand, Miss. They will be delivery to you as tonight."

"Good. Now, get out!"

A door slammed, causing Erik to jump. He stared up at the ceiling and told himself to remember to ask Marguerite what "star" and "salary" meant. For the time being, he had found something that interested him more: a narrow set of steps leading up one side of the opening. He set his foot on it and proceeded to climb up the shaky steps. When he got to the top of the steps, he realized he was standing among rich woman's clothes and peering into the lady's red-flowered room.

At present, that lady was lounged across a huge chair, holding herself in a posture Erik had never seen before. She was wearing a dress such as Erik had never seen before but which looked like a shinier version of a man's robe – he had only seen robes once or twice when he had peeked into a house window and had seen somebody holding bound, thin sheets of cloth out before him, staring at it as though amused with what was there while wearing a robe.

Now Erik peered at the lady the same way he had peered at the man, though he found the woman far more interesting because of what she was doing. She was brushing her hair into long, dark curls down her back. Erik watched as her curls caught the light and reflected into much the way that stained-glass had done. He found the word "beautiful" of the tip of his tongue and almost whispered it at her. But he did not know her yet and do not trust her not to betray him to the men who were following him, so he kept his silence.

The woman put down the brush and picked up a red flower, twirling it around before gazing into it. Then, suddenly, she frowned, threw down the flower and strode from the room. "Gerard!" she snapped before slamming the door behind her with a rustle of her robe. Once she was gone, he ran out a grab the fallen – and offending, he figured from the way she had thrown it down – flower of the floor. Then he climbed back down to the floor below and ran the other way towards the next, wider steps.

At the top of the next steps, he saw the woman arguing with the man… "I asked for fresh roses every day, and these ones aren't fresh! Go find someone to replace them." She gave a dismissive hand wave at the man as she returned to her room. As the man turned, sighing, to go, Erik ducked into another space. The man passed, muttering something under his breath that Erik did not catch, and started up a set of steps that circled around a single pole on there way up, leaving Erik unseen in the space.

He ducked back into the hallway and found himself staring at the contraption down the wall from where he had hid. _Ladder_, he remembered Isabelle had called it and said it was used for climbing: another set of steps then. He climbed it for quite a while and opened a door at the top of it. He was on top of wooden planking in a wide hallway. There were people down at the other end of this long hall, but they were making loud noise and were not paying attention to what was happening in his area of the planking. Still, there was nowhere to hide if they should happen to look, and there was a door opposite and down a few feet. He ran for it and pushed himself through on to an empty plank in a giant room.

The only thing Erik had ever seen that was about the room's size was the building with the stained-glass, except this time he was looking down into it, making it seem that much grander to a boy who had never been off ground level before. But the sheer size alone was barely even half the impression it made upon him.

It was clean, and it was as color-rich as the stained-glass only more so. There were soft, red chairs lining every free inch of space slowly rising up on steps. The walls were made up of shiny glowing-brown metal, complete with cloth-less human forms done in them. Above the chairs, there was a ceiling where someone had done the sky. Around his, there was wooden planking, full of things he did not know but that looked like thing he desired to add to his knowledge.

Under him, he saw Marguerite, dancing with other similarly dressed girls under the instruction of a tall woman in a matching dress to the girls'. There were all doing the same activities he had attempted to follow her in. He peered at them, noticing that some of them were girls he recognized from there leering faces the previous night, although now those same faces were twisted in concentration. He did not trust these girls at all. A certain element of their dance, however, made him whisper, "Beautiful," though he was not sure he liked calling anyone who would be mean to him by this word.

Still, he moved further out onto the planking to see their dance from a better view. Then stood up, shakily because he was so high, and tried to do as they did. As he did this, he did not dismiss the reversal of their positions from the previous evening: now he was watching them instead of the other way around. He liked it as he did the exercises in the planking above the floor where they danced. He definitely liked it.

All too soon in his opinion, the dancing was over and the angel-like dancers moved off through the doors on the side of the floor. Marguerite glanced up at him, and by instinct, he hid from her eyes before they could catch him there. He would tell her he was there later if she kept her word. If not… well it was better than his cage in the gypsy circus and they were looking for him besides. He would have to stay here. And this beautiful place was his new home and he meant to uncover every space within it until somebody caught him, and he never meant to let that happen. He whispered the word that had once referred to Babette and Belle again: "This place is beautiful."


	3. Learning About Singing

"What does 'salary' mean?" Erik asked that evening when Marguerite, true to her word, came to his room that evening with more food. He had had his fill earlier – together the two meals were as much as he was accustomed to in a week – so though he still ate the food, he wasn't eating as fast as his companion.

She had her mouth full and made a noise to indicate this. As she worked to empty her mouth, Erik asked another question. "And 'star'? What does 'star' mean?"

She had emptied her mouth and exclaimed, "Oh! You've seen Madame Giulia then?"

He nodded.

"She is our opera star – the leading lady singer."

He tipped his head.

She stared at him. "What don't you know?"

"What's 'singer'?" he asked in a quiet voice.

"It's a person who makes music with his mouth. And – oh, you don't know what 'music' is, do you?"

"Is 'music' the noise that comes from the piano?"

Her eyes went wide with surprise. "You learn quickly."

"And singing is matching that noise?"

She tipped her head back and forth.

"Can you sing?" he asked.

"Not well," she answered, but stood up anyway and went up the scale for him.

She broke off because he was sitting so still with his head tipped to one side, staring at her.

"Are you okay?"

"Beautiful…" he whispered.

She shook her head. "Wait until tomorrow. Madame Giulia will be singing rehearsals. Then you'll get to hear her singing. Her cousin is our ballet teacher, and occasionally, they faced off to see who is better at her talent – _etoile_ or soprano. When they do, they are amazing. Do you know 'amazing'?"

Erik nodded and smiled. "I like this place."


	4. Orchestra

A/N: "Les Huguenots" is a real opera that was performed at the Academic Royale de Musique (the Paris Opera). In 1836, it starred Adolphe Nourrit as Raoul de Nangis and Cornelie Falcon as Valentine.

* * *

The following morning, Erik awoke to piano music being played above. Along with the piano, he heard a series of other musical sounds. He was able to recognize the sound of violins from when a member of the circus named Siren had obtained one, which he would play outside the circus to entice people in. There were notes lower than violins could make as well, but still the same type of notes. Stranger noise sounded like the cymbals he had attached to his burlap monkey, but harsher, like Master Namir tapping his foot on the floor when he was bored. Also, there were sounds like wind against the bottles in the pub he'd seen.

Eager to see what this collection of music was coming from, he crept upstairs to the planking above the enormous room again, and peered down into a jumble of violins, larger violins that stood on the floor from which the lower violin sounds were coming, a piano and various thin tubes from which the bottle music was rising. He lay down on the planking to get a better view of these strange things.

They were in front of the raised platform where the ballet lessons had taken place the day before. Most of the people making music – _playing_, he remembered from Marguerite telling him what a piano was – were sitting. However, among the ones standing was someone without a musical piece who stood facing the rest of the players. Instead he only had a holder with a thin sheet on it. He seemed to have an air of strict command about him.

Even as Erik watched, the man took up a stick and tapped the holder with it. "Gentlemen, I trust the instruments are tuned," he spoke above the din. Everyone grew silent within seconds, holding the musical pieces such that the man could tell they were not playing. "Good," the man replied. "Now open to the prelude."

And, with a full graceful hand motion, the musical pieces all went up and started working together. Up above, Erik gasped at the beauty of it and lay back, listening to the sounds create something more than their individual selves.

"Monsieur le Conductor says the instruments keep losing their tunings and wants us to do something 'bout it," said a gruff voice somewhere near Erik on the same level he was. He looked around and spotted the source of it – two men off towards the middle of the planking – and felt his heart race: the men gave off the same feeling as Master Namir – a cruel, impolite, drunken sort of air – and he imagined they would laugh at him if they saw him. Quickly, he glanced around for a place to hide and found it: a narrow notch in between three vertical planks. In there, no one could see him unless they looked directly in at him. Better yet, from their, he could still see part of the music going on below and could hear more of the conversation the men were having.

"An' what's he want us to do 'bout it?" asked the second man. They were getting steadily closer, and Erik found that if the music had been a person, he would have thanked it: it provided him the background noise to ensure they didn't hear him.

"Went so far as to accuse us of not taking good enough care of them, even saying that we didn't want the opera to go on. Not saying that I'm not sick a hearing it. Two years of hearing Nourrit sing the Huguenot Raoul de Nangis and Mademoiselle Cornelie do Valentine grate my nerves as much as the next backstage man, but I never thought a no sabotage. I need to live, right," the first man rambled.

"I dunno. I can never get enough of watching the battle scene an their dying on her father's gun." The second man laughed. It was a harsh laugh, and it made Erik shiver.

"Gautier! Old dog! You just like it 'cause it's when you're props get use." Erik remembered the name Marguerite had told him the day before to excuse his presence with if anyone should stumble across him. That this was the man he was supposed to claim was his father gave him relief and a sort of vindictive pleasure. He had feared Gautier's denial; however, now he had believed Gautier was one of the types who didn't keep track of his sons. He had also feared he would be accusing a gentleman of the type who did not go to the circus; however this man was hateful, lessening Erik's guilt about saying he was Gautier's son.

"Richard, my good sir, don't tell me I'm not allowed to enjoy myself with my imagined Valentine. We are worth how much because of his good sir, the wealthy Meyerbeer?"

The old Gautier and the younger Richard fell into fits of laughter. Erik sensed something funny had just been said. He also decided he didn't want to know what it was, merely hoping that these men didn't happen across him.

"Listen to them, down there!" Gautier nodded down to the music.

"Maybe the reason they think their instruments are out of tune is 'cause they can't play 'em!" Richard laughed. "Orchestra, my arse!"

Gautier nodded. "What time is this gonna be over?"

Richard shrugged.

"What time today do the sweet little ballerinas dance?" Gautier's voice became sleazier the lower it dropped.

"Mid morning. Wouldn't want them getting up too early, now would we? Although that one, Marguerite I think her name is, seems to be coming along quite nicely, f'you know what I mean."

Gautier laughed in agreement, and Erik found himself burning with the same anger that he had been in when he had killed Master Namir. How dare they defile Marguerite's beautiful name by even mentioning her! He vowed that, though they could admire her from afar, he would prevent them from getting close to her.

They walked on, but Erik stayed where he was, admiring the music they had so insulted from a vantage point no one could find. Finally, they put down their instruments, and the room emptied with words of breakfast.


	5. Vantage Point: Drapes

Sorry this one took so long. Writers block, other fanficsand general fear of research happen. But here's the next chapter. Please review.

* * *

Erik decided to see where food was (just in case he might need to know it in the future, though he was not hungry now), so he followed the instrument players, finally hiding behind a drape across the hall from the room they entered. They left the door open as they stored their instruments in small boxes. Many of them then walked down the hall and left the Opera House. A few, however, walked away from the exit. Erik decided to follow these.

They found their way to a room with a big table where the ballerinas were already sitting and eating. Marguerite was there too, but there were too many people around to let her know he was there. It was difficult, but eventually he made his way from one end of the room to the other unseen, by means of the drapes that thickly covered every wall in the Opera House, and through a door that smelled of food and warmth.

Inside he found a bustle of big, cylindrical, metal boxes and thin, wooden utensils. But he was searching for something else. After sneaking behind a large container to remain unseen in the roomful of people, he found what he had sought: food. As he was not hungry now, he grabbed a piece of bread big enough to last him until the end of the following week and snuck back out of the kitchen to watch the people eat from behind the drapes.

Once there, he listened to the ballerinas talking at one end of the table and to the orchestra at the other, adding new words to his vocabulary if he was able to decipher their meanings or to a list he would ask Marguerite when he saw her again. One thing he confirmed was that Marguerite seemed more quiet and polite than the other ballerinas – indeed, there were many there whom he recognized had laughed at him only two nights before – and once again, he thought of those two horrible men and their admiration of her and felt a fierce desire to keep them away from her.

Then, too soon in Erik's opinion, both groups were standing up and walking out the door, the ballerinas tittering about lessons. Erik followed them back to the theater and slunk back to his perch in the planking up above as the dozen or so little ballerinas wandered, still chattering and all wearing the same clothing, onto the stage.

The two men were still out in the middle of the planking. Both elbowed each other and stared down at the girls. Erik felt he had seen starved dogs with nicer expressions. "I got us a bottle for tonight," Old Gautier was saying.

"Mmm," said Richard, staring without blinking at Marguerite. "Something civilized, I hope." He turned to the older man. "Nothing like the rat-piss that upstart Buquet brought us last time."

"Ha!" the old man laughed. "Never! Ba! That was rat-piss, wasn't it?"

"Buquet has slippery fingers and a worser mind," Richard said. Then he turned to the old man. "You have work to be doing up here, old man!"

"Silence boy! I'm twice the stagehand you'll ever be and I gave you the job what puts food in your ungrateful belly."

Richard laughed. "You needed somebody willing to keep you on when you got too drunk to remember your cues. Now let's get our good luck block-and-fall an' get that set off the stage so we won't have to let Gerard boss us 'round no more."

Now it was Gautier turn to laugh. "Anything you order, young Napoleon."

"That's Messeur Giry to you, Gautier – ."

"The day I call you Messeur…"

"Shut that hole in your face and get your drunken ass over here."

Gautier rolled his eyes, gesturing obscenely at the dancers below, who couldn't see him, though Erik could and understood the gesture. "Yes Messeur Giry." Erik, from his hiding place, had never felt hatred burning so bright.


End file.
